Dear Ms. Manners,

My roommate is a little too chummy with her snooze button. Whenever it goes off, she pushes it repeatedly, every eight minutes, for the next hour... every...single...morning. Even though she has class much earlier than me, I haven’t been able to enjoy that precious last hour of rest every morning because I’m a really light sleeper. I’d be willing to do anything for uninterrupted slumber. Suggestions? — Frazzled and Fatigued in FloMo

Dear Fatigued,

If you’re feeling disgruntled about your lack of sleep and want to go the meaner route, you should just turn your roommate’s alarm off either after the first snooze-hit or sometime at night after she goes to sleep. After she misses class a few times, she’ll learn not to be so friendly with Mr. Snooze. Unfortunately, she will also have a vendetta against you unless if you can convince her that mysterious furry night creatures are responsible for tampering with the alarm (the thought will probably keep her up so the alarm won’t be needed anyway).

Then again, you’re already tired so you might as well have fun with this. Here are some creative suggestions if you don’t mind sacrificing even more sleep in hopes to potentially sever the tie between your roommate and the Snooze (keep in mind that you may simultaneously sever the ties between you and your roommate in the process. Oops!) Place her alarm in an unreachable place — a pile of laundry, right outside of the door or, if you’re feeling extra devious, tie it from the ceiling and suspend it inches above her desperately drowsy grasp. You could also borrow or purchase multiple alarms, set them to the same time and scatter them throughout the room. I offer both of these suggestions in hopes that by actually getting up, your roommate will be roused from sleep — if she is willing to get up, search, press multiple buttons, half-contemplate if she’s going insane and STILL get back into bed only to do it all over again eight minutes later, you are out of luck, kid.

If you’d rather forgo passive-aggressiveness for all-out rage, there are several options for you. Like throwing the alarm out the window (after angrily ripping out the screen). You could also snip the chord, take out the batteries, cancel Cingular or demolish whatever else is keeping that alarm alive. Your neighbors might think you’re a little whack when you walk out of the room with a sledgehammer and a bunch o’ wires, but whatever. It’s for a good cause.

Actually, you could just, you know, talk your roommate about her snoozing issues. That’d probably be the easiest thing to do... short of getting ear plugs.

Dear Ms. Manners,

My roommate is driving me nuts. When she wakes up, she’s on her cell phone. Before she goes to sleep, she’s on her cell phone. In between her classes, she’s on her cell phone. Basically, she’s always on her cell phone. I adore her and all, but I really hate her cell phone. How can I get her to stop talking so much on the phone while in our room? — Ticked in Toyon

Dear Ticked,

This is a tough one. My knee-jerk response is to tell your roommate to talk in the hallway instead. But then everybody in the dorm will get annoyed and within days she will be known around the dorm as “the girl that’s always on her phone.” And you wouldn’t want to do that to your beloved roomie, would you? Yeah, I didn’t think so. So on to some other suggestions.

The easiest would be to somehow “accidentally” break her phone, but chances are she’ll get it fixed in a jiffy so that’s a no-go. If she’s talking to her boyfriend or best friend, you could always try to undermine their relationship by saying things like, “You know... your boyfriend calls an awful lot. Are you sure he isn’t dependent on you and trying to distract you from more important things like studying and not driving your roommate nuts?” Or you could answer the phone when your roommate’s in the bathroom, yelling into the receiver, “Hey roomie, that crazy friend that you always complain about is calling.” That ought to guarantee at least a week of silent treatment between them, which translates into a week of peace and quiet for you.

If you’re feeling more industrious and have some friends in the mechanical engineering department, you could fashion a sound-proof booth around your roommate’s bed. There are lots of benefits to this one, so if you have the resources, I’d get cracking now. No need to worry about the confusion it will cause during room inspections come winter break — as long as the booth isn’t lit by candles or halogen lights, you’re good to go.

Another suggestion is to convince your roommate to switch to Verizon. Her reception will be so bad inside of the dorm that she’ll have no chance but to go outside. Although you’ll probably have to put up with her saying, “Hello!? Hello!? I can’t hear you” 100 times a day, it’ll be worth it when she leaves the room in exasperation, waving her phone spastically as she searches for reception.

Actually, you could just, you know, talk your roommate about her cell phone issues. That’d probably be the easiest thing to do... short of getting ear plugs.